In July the heat hung over the moor and the heather hummed with insect life. Sally Fletcher went with Graham, the National Park ranger, to do the official butterfly count. She’d learnt her identifications quickly, and Graham was able to rely on her sightings. They’d become quite the team, and Brian had asked if they were having some kind of affair. Laughing at the very idea. The reservoirs shone white beneath the high summer sun. There was a parish council meeting which was almost entirely taken up with the issue of the proposed public conveniences, and by the time they came to Any Other Business Tony wanted to close the bar. So there was a general shifting in seats when Frank Parker stood up and said he wished to raise the issue of verge maintenance. Brian asked Judith to check whether this had been raised before. Judith looked through the record and confirmed that it had. I think in that case, and in light of the time, we’ll ask you to submit a written report to a future meeting, Brian said. Frank Parker experienced the brief turmoil of being offended and grateful at the same time. In the beech wood the fox cubs were doing their own foraging and the parents were spending longer away. In the night there were calls back and forth. The edges of the territory were understood. Around the deep pond at the far end of Thompson’s land a ring of willow trees were in full leaf, shielding the pond as though something shameful had once happened there which needed keeping from view. There was a parents’ evening at the school, and Will Jackson went down to see how Tom was getting on. Miss Carter showed him some of Tom’s workbooks and told him that he seemed a contented little boy. She said she’d be starting at a new school in September and he said that was a shame. He said Tom would miss her. But Tom wouldn’t be in my class in September, she pointed out. He looked embarrassed. But I just mean generally, about the place, he said. You’ll be missed. She held his gaze for a moment. Generally about the place? He nodded. A look of realisation came into her eyes. Oh, Christ, Will, she said. You idiot. He stood up, holding Tom’s report sheet, watching her watch him to the door. Afterwards he wondered whether she’d meant he should have asked. Later in the week there was a leaving assembly and when Mrs Simpson gave Miss Carter flowers the parents stood up and applauded so loudly that she didn’t know what to say. At the river a heron stood and watched the water, its body angled and poised while the evening grew dark.
Claire had been seen spending time at the Jackson house, and Will Jackson was uneasy about why. After almost three years of living with her mother, keeping Tom half the week and barely saying a word when they met, she appeared to be softening. She’d been taking Tom to the Jackson house while Will was out working, spending time with Maisie and staying for tea when she was asked. Maisie seemed to brighten in Claire’s company, as though they’d only just met and she was looking to make an impression. And Tom was happy to have both parents in the same room, looking from one to the other while he chattered about school, reassuring himself that they were both there. After one of these teas, Claire asked Maisie whether she wouldn’t mind having Tom for the evening while she and Will went for a drink in town. Which was the first Will had heard of such a plan. Maisie said that would be fine. Tom jumped up and asked if he could read a bedtime story to Grandad. Will could feel the weather shift around him. He asked Claire what was going on as they walked out to the car, and she told him they were just going for a drink. He didn’t think there was ever a just when Claire was involved. At the pub he bought the drinks without needing to ask what she was having. They sat opposite each other and talked about his father, his brothers, the farm. She talked about her work. He was watching her, waiting for something to happen. She seemed distracted. She couldn’t keep still. It was like she had some kind of secret, and holding it back was more fun than telling it would be. He wondered if she had a new boyfriend. She asked if it was true he was going to be in that year’s pantomime. He said he’d been asked. Well, you can’t really turn it down, she said. She bought a second round of drinks. He had a half, on account of the driving. He’d expected they would run out of things to say, but they didn’t. He’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to her, when they weren’t arguing or keeping each other at bay. He’d known her as long as he’d known anyone – from playgroup, from school, from paddling in the river and running around the farm and long summer evenings swimming in the quarry – so it should never have been a surprise. Their falling into a relationship had been as obvious and easy as his working with his brothers on the farm. It was having the baby had been the problem. They were too young. Eighteen, and old enough for a council flat on the Close but nowhere near old enough for the responsibility of it. It had made serious people of them, and that had never been the plan. They’d had help to begin with, from both mothers and from people in the village, but it had all fallen away after a while. And then it had just been chores. Chores on the farm, chores at home, and nowhere to go for any time off. She’d got fed up with his long hours of working. After a while it had seemed like they only knew how to argue. And a while after that, she’d left. He’d taught himself how to live without her, and as nice as it was to sit with her now, he had no regrets about the way things had turned out. They finished their drinks and he offered another round and she said they should get on. They drove back in silence, the light thinning as they came through the head of the valley and round past the old quarry entrance where she asked him to stop and was kissing him before he’d even put the handbrake on. He pushed her carefully away. He asked what she was doing. We’ve had a nice evening, haven’
t we? she asked. And I know you’d like to. But I thought things were settled, he said. Her hands were moving up his thighs. I thought I’d unsettle them a bit, she said. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face. So you reckon you can just rock up and click your fingers, and that’ll be that? Whistle and I’ll come running? She sat back in her seat, looking at him. Yeah, she said. Pretty much. She got out of the car and walked into the quarry. She didn’t even need to look back. He muttered to himself and shook his head and followed her into the quarry, quickening his step to catch up.
In September a soft rain no more than mist hung in the trees along the valley floor. The river turned over beneath the packhorse bridge and carried scraps of light to the weir. The missing girl was seen walking around the shore of the reservoir, hopping from one breakwater rock to another with seemingly not a care in the world. This was Irene’s description. A public meeting was held in the village hall about the quarry company’s plans to open a site close to the Stone Sisters, and there was a general air of opposition. There were crab apples and wild apples beside the freight line curving into the cement works, and on a Sunday morning when there were no trains Winnie walked carefully down there and filled four carrier bags, taking them home to cook up into a clear golden jam, flavoured with rosemary stems. There was a commotion at the Jones house, and an ambulance came to take his sister away. This had happened before. Nobody thought it appropriate to ask questions, and he didn’t volunteer. He was seen in the week working at the school without interruption, and wherever she’d gone he didn’t seem to be visiting. Evenings he was down at the millpond with his fishing tackle. The boatmen and skaters slid across the still surface and his mind was clear. He could feel the tension lift away as the fish began to rise. People had no idea. He watched the teenagers on the other side of the river following the footpath down to the weir. They carried bottles of white cider that Lynsey had bought in town, and sat on the benches outside the tea rooms to drink them. Sophie asked whether it was true that James’s parents were going to split up. James said how was he supposed to know. It was none of his business. They hardly talked to him anyway. Not since. He stopped and lit a cigarette and tried to do a plank on the edge of the picnic bench. Liam asked not since what. James didn’t answer. Liam asked was he fucking crying or what, and Sophie told him to leave it. Lynsey told Liam to walk with her, and when they looked back Sophie was sitting next to James, her arms curled around him and the side of his head pressed against her chest. His dad had taken him to the police, it turned out. He’d made him tell them about the time he’d spent with Becky Shaw. The detective they’d spoken to had been sharp with them both and said it was too late for the information to be of any use. He asked Sophie not to tell anyone this. The pigeons fought in the trees. The bats came out at dusk to feed low over the water, fattening up for the winter. There were wild pheasants in the pens at the edge of the Culshaw Estate, drawn in by the fresh water and feeders. After a fortnight Jones’s sister came home and he put the fishing gear away.
In October the winds were high and in the mornings there were trees blocking the road. The sound of gunshots cracked down from the woods in pairs. There were more sightings of the missing girl’s father, although some of them turned out to be false. It was known that he no longer wore the charcoal-grey anorak, and there was anyway no shortage of preoccupied men striding solitary through the hills. But there were enough sightings to give the impression of a man who couldn’t keep away. There was talk that he and the girl’s mother had divorced, and around that time the sightings increased. On the shore of the reservoir; around the edge of the quarry; down at the river by the packhorse bridge. Almost always seen from a distance, moving away. At the allotment the pumpkins fattened slowly, lifted from the damp soil on squares of glass, striped in the low autumn light. Jane Hughes walked back from the Hunter place and happened upon Jones beside the millpond. He was standing patiently with his hands behind his back, his shoulders hunched and his neck angled forward. She didn’t want to interrupt, but as she walked past there was a softening in his posture which she understood as acknowledgement. She’d grown used to these cues. She stepped up beside him and looked at the water for a moment. Mr Jones, she said. Vicar, he replied. You’ve been keeping well? she asked. He nodded. And your sister? He didn’t answer, but pointed in at the water, at some tiny change in the light she could barely see. Scared them all off now, he said. Really? I’m stood in the shadow of the tree, he explained; so I’m right. But you’ve come looming, so. She stepped away from the edge of the water apologetically. She looked at him. Are you fishing today? No, he said. But if I was. I’ll remember that then. Sorry. There was the clatter of woodpigeons’ wings in the trees overhead, and the sound of the water moving over the stones. Jones still had his hands behind his back. She’s home again, he said. I gathered, yes. There’s plenty of trout in there, he told her, if you don’t bother them. We don’t see her around much, Jane said, leaning out over the water as though watching for trout, giving him a chance to speak without being looked at. She doesn’t go out, he said. She waited, but there was no more. That must be difficult for you, she said. Not really. She’s no bother. Do you get any help? She felt him stiffen beside her, and his hands came round from behind his back, rearranging his jacket buttons, his cap. He turned away from the water. Weather, he said, nodding towards the hills. It looks like it’s coming in, she agreed. Be seeing you then, he said, lighting a cigarette and setting off along the footpath towards the packhorse bridge. On the stubbled fields of Thompson’s land a buzzard wandered, picking for worms.
A fog rose early from the river and settled over the morning and the streets felt thick with sleep. On the bank at the top end of the beech wood the badger sett was quiet. There were tracks between the sett and the damp ground beneath the elder trees where the earthworms were mostly found, but the feeding trips were brief. There were dry leaves and grasses scattered up towards the sett. A settlement was reached over the footbridge, with the Culshaw Estate and the parish council and the National Park agreeing to split the cost. The Jacksons took the contract and had the job done in three days. On Bonfire Night the rain kept people indoors and although the bonfire had been covered it took a long time to light, smoking and spitting while a small crowd stood beneath umbrellas and cheered sarcastically. Later in the month Will Jackson took Tom out on the back of the quad bike to check on the ewes that hadn’t yet been brought down to bye. While they were up there he explained that the three of them would be living together again soon. Tom was helping to check feet, and he concentrated very hard on the hoof he had jammed between his knees. Mum told me, he said, eventually. You’re all right with it then? It’s not up to me. No, but we want you to feel all right about it. Will found the first signs of scald on a ewe, and asked Tom to pass him the spray. Think it’ll be easier than going backwards and forwards all the time? Can we talk about something else, Dad? Will looked at Tom and nodded, and they didn’t say anything for a while, and once they’d checked the whole flock they sat on the edge of the trailer and looked down the hill.
A woman by the name of Susanna Wright moved into one of the three-bed houses on the Close with her children. Questions were asked as to how she’d been allocated when she wasn’t known. Others had been on the list for longer. She was quick to introduce herself but vague about where she was from. Her accent was southern. She had a boy of fifteen and a girl of ten, Rohan and Ashleigh, who spent their first days in the village slouching about with the sullen expressions of children who’ve grown up in the city and feel threatened by people willing to say hello. There were questions about why she’d moved in at this time of year, and where the father might be, but nothing was said to her face. She was heard in the post office talking about a damp problem, and Gordon Jackson was soon round there offering to help. At the other end of the Close Claire moved back into the flat Will had managed to keep on since she’d left him the first time. There was no real ceremony to it; half her stuff had been left in the cupboards a
ll along, and since that evening when they’d stopped off at the quarry she’d been leaving more of her things each time she stayed over. Tom wasn’t sure he preferred the new arrangement. He wasn’t surprised when he heard them arguing about curtains. He didn’t think his dad had ever had an opinion about curtains before. He kept a bag of clothes and toiletries and schoolbooks tucked under his bed, just in case. A week before Christmas it snowed heavily overnight and in the morning people shovelled pathways from their doors, the village busy with the sound of metal scraping against stone and of car engines left running to warm up. Jackson’s boys went out and put grit on the steeper roads but for the most part people had to drive slowly, their tyres squeaking on the compacted snow. In the evening there were carol singers going from door to door for the local hospice, and their voices trailed thinly through the still cold air.
Richard Clark came home just after Christmas, and for once his sisters were there when he arrived. When he sat down to eat with them he felt cornered. The husbands and children made for a crowded dinner table and he didn’t have much to say. They were staying up at the Hunters’ barn conversions, and on the doorstep when they left his sisters talked about their mother’s health. There was talk about responsibility being shared. He couldn’t be out of the country this much, he was told. He was the oldest of the three but it had never felt that way. He said he’d do what he could but it seemed that their mother was coping perfectly well. His work wasn’t always predictable, he said. Your work’s a total bloody enigma, Rachel said. You know what I do, he replied. He started to explain again about his consultancy business, but they made yawning noises and laughed and headed for their cars. The high street was busy. The pantomime was on in the village hall, and well attended again. It was Aladdin this year. Tony was Widow Twankey, and he made a good job of it. He delivered his lines in a loud deadpan which at times didn’t look entirely deliberate, and he wore the heavy costume with a certain grace. Will Jackson was working backstage but had refused a part. When the audience headed out into the night the snow was falling thickly again. The next day Martin stopped off at Harefield to look at Ruth’s new shop. She was surprised to see him. He was heading to his new job in town but this wasn’t on his way. She asked how he was keeping and he said it was okay. There was a lot of fresh produce in wicker baskets, and sausages hanging in strings above the chiller counter, and a strong smell of coffee. There were many different types of olive. There were prices Martin found it difficult to believe people were actually paying, but when he asked how business was going Ruth said he’d be surprised. People had cut back on cars and foreign holidays, she told him, and they were spending what was left in shops like this. People liked to treat themselves to nice things. He wondered if this was a pointed remark but he let it settle. They’d had differences. It was done now. He was just glad to know things were going well. He drove into work fast enough that he almost lost grip on the last corner before town, and parked across two parking bays, and clocked on just before his shift was due. If he’d wanted a fucking economics lesson he would’ve asked.
4.
At midnight when the year turned there were fireworks from the Hunter place. The sound carried suddenly to the village hall and for a moment people wondered what it was. Irene was called out from the kitchen and asked to take Andrew home as he’d become agitated. At the next parish council the Hunters were asked not to repeat the display. When term started Rohan Wright caught the bus to the secondary school in town with Liam and James and Lynsey and Sophie. They’d seen him around the village but they hadn’t yet spoken. There were nods and he told them his name. They asked where he’d moved from and he said south of London. Liam asked if his mum was the hippy who was going to run yoga classes, and the others told him to shut up. I’m not being funny, I’m just saying, he said. My mum’s well into yoga. She knows Yuri Gagarin and everything. There were so many ways this didn’t make sense that no one quite knew what to say. You know, he explained, incredulously. The spoon-bender! Your mum’s a bender, Lynsey said, and James gave her a high-five. The bus turned on to the main road by her parents’ farm-supplies place, and they asked Rohan questions about his old school all the way to town. Cathy Harris drove past the bus in the other direction, and when she got home she knocked on Mr Wilson’s door and asked whether Nelson needed a walk. He said that would be a great help, and asked whether she’d have a cup of tea first. A routine of theirs, this, to make the arrangement seem temporary, when in fact Cathy had been walking Nelson most days for years. Mr Wilson’s hip made it hard for him to get up the hill and as far as the shop, let alone the hour’s brisk stride that Nelson hankered after all day. A cup of tea would be lovely, she said, bracing herself for the thud of Nelson jumping up against her. Mr Wilson closed the door and walked slowly to the kettle. The Millennium Millstones were pushed off their plinths, and Sean Hooper was contracted to repair them. By the packhorse bridge a heron paced through the mud at the river’s edge, head bobbing, feet lifted awkwardly high. It stopped, and settled, and watched the water.
In February there was no snow but the frosts were hard. Ruth was sent a Valentine’s card and knew that it came from Martin. The best response would be silence, she decided. At Reservoir no. 7, the maintenance team checked the upstream face of the dam, looking for erosion along the edge of the crest. There were cracks of ice in the shallow puddles along the path. Susanna Wright held her first yoga class in the village hall. There were only three people there, and because the room was too cold for safe stretching she spent the session talking about What Yoga Is and What Yoga Isn’t. She said she’d speak to the caretaker about the heating, and then she asked who the caretaker was. The County sent someone to clear the old quarry down by the main road. The two burnt-out cars had been a beacon for every fly-tipper in the area, and it took three trucks to cart it away. Where’s it all come from? Martin asked Tony, as they stood up on the cliff above the quarry, watching. Where’s it all going is more the point, said Tony. They’re only going to stick it in some other hole in the ground. Might as well leave it here. Wait while the quarry’s full and then bury it all. Plant some fucking trees. Job done. There were gulls and crows circling overhead. Jones was with them but he had nothing to say. Martin headed off down the road to work. He’d taken a job on the meat counter in the new supermarket. He hadn’t told people but they found out soon enough. They all shopped there, after all. It felt like the final humiliation, after Bruce, and the shop, and Ruth. But the hours were fine and although the pay wasn’t great it was more in his pocket than he’d had when they were running the shop into the ground. They gave him a striped apron and a badge saying Master Butcher, but it wasn’t butchery. The meat came in ready-jointed, and he was just there to hand it over. He didn’t even have his good knives. They were locked in the shop, and the stroppy young bollock from the bank was refusing to let him have them back. He’d been in the job three months now, and his supervisor said there were no complaints as such but did he want to have a think about engaging with the customers a little more? Martin said he would certainly think about that, and went out to the loading bay for a smoke and a kick of the packing cases which were stacked there. The sun went down around half past four but it was already dark by then, the murky light blotted out by the high moors and the gathering clouds.
There was weather, and branches from the allotment sycamores blew on to the roof of the Tucker house next door to Jones. The place had been empty now for seven years. There was a dispute to be settled before it could be sold, but no one seemed to know what it was or who might be involved. Jones went up a ladder and took the branches down. He checked the slates. His sister watched from the front of the house. These things made her anxious. She would ask about them often until they were resolved. He told her the slates were fine and he put the ladder away. She went into the house. The woodpigeons built their nests in the trees by the river. The thin frame of sticks seemed barely enough to take the weight of one fat bird. But it was assumed they knew what they were doing. Cooper was seen working late on the magazine, hard up against the deadline once again. He enjoyed these last pressured hours. It reminded him of working on The Times, years back, before he’d come up here to do press for the National Park. There was that same sense of hurried exactitude, of getting one chance only to check everything through. There were differences, of course. The deadlines now were only a matter of his own pride, for one thing. And there was no one else in the office, which meant no one to go for drinks with once the issue was put to bed. The whole office was silent, in fact. He could hear the footsteps of the boys upstairs, hammering backwards and forwards, and Su’s muffled voice as she tried to get their pyjamas on. She sounded exhausted, and part of him wanted to go up and take over. But he knew it wouldn’t help, and that Su wouldn’t thank him for it. She hadn’t been in the mood for thanking
him lately. He’d been getting things wrong, it seemed. Doing too much, or too little. She’d fallen behind on some projects at work, and been asked to take unpaid leave. A view had been taken about her home-working arrangements, and she seemed to hold him responsible in some way. It was stressful having young children. He understood this. It would pass. He printed off the final proof sheets, and leant over them with a poised red pen. Outside the wind was brisk through the trees. In the band of conifers above Reservoir no. 5 a pair of buzzards rebuilt their nest from the previous year, weaving in new sticks and lining the shallow bowl of it with fresh bracken and grass.
By April the first swallows were seen and the walkers were back on the hills. At the heronry high in the trees above the quarry there was a persistent unsettledness of wings. Night came down. At the allotments the water was turned back on for the year and Clive was the first to get his hose hooked up, the silvery water skidding across the ground before seeping into the cracks. There was blasting again at the quarry, and when the first siren came everyone ignored the long rising wail. The second siren came a few minutes later, and anyone with washing on the line was quick to bring it inside. The third siren went and the birds flung up from the trees in the quarry and scattered, and the air stilled for a moment before the deep thudding crack thundered out through the ground and was gone. At the first all-clear the birds settled in the trees. At the second the workers in the quarry went back. In the village the windows were kept closed for a few hours more until the dust had cleared. At the river the keeper dropped the cage of sample bottles into the water from the footbridge by the weir. Always the same spot, at the same time of day, on the same day of the month. Meanwhile there were two chaps who looked like they were scouting for fishing spots, and he wanted a word. He passed Irene on her way up to the church with two bags full of flowers. When she got there she heard singing from the vestry, and it kept on while she gathered the vases. She wasn’t much of a judge but it was quite a piece of singing. Took a few moments to realise it was the vicar, because you didn’t hear her singing like that in a morning service. She didn’t recognise the tune and she could barely make out the words but there was something capturing about it. The high bright windows and the dust in the air and the smell of wood polish and Irene standing there with her arms full of flowers not wanting to move. Faintly another siren sounded at the quarry, and the singing stopped. Late in the month the Spring Dance was held in aid of Amnesty, which was controversial for those who thought politics should be kept out of it but was pushed through by Jane Hughes. It was agreed that no publicity material would be displayed as it could detract from the mood of the event. Some folk do find that manner of talk puts them off the hog roast, Clive told the meeting. His remark was carefully minuted. The police did a presentation on crime prevention at the Gladstone, and while everyone was in there someone took off with a stock trailer the Jacksons had left on Top Road. There were some who thought this story was funny when they told it but they were soon set straight.
In his studio Geoff Simmons threw a new batch of pots. Yesterday’s were drying slowly at the back of the workshop, and the kiln was beginning to warm. He pressed a ball of clay on to the wet wheel and centred it off. The whippet slept in the sun. He palmed the spinning clay and drew it taller and fingered it into a vessel. The wall worked thinner in his hands. Throw lines formed on the surface and the water flowed out from the wheel. There were years of learnt discretion in these moves. It couldn’t be shown. The pressure of his touch was exactly sufficient and this pot from the clay came to be. He slowed the wheel and shaped the brim. There was a bellying in and out that he liked to impose, and a curl at the lip. Customers sometimes asked if these were vases or jugs or drinking cups and he said only that they were vessels. He had been accused of being obtuse. On the rug the whippet kicked her back legs, dreaming of sprinting across fields. In the quarry by the main road the small coppers were mating again. There were swallows nesting high in the barns, the eggs glossy white and speckled red beneath the fluffed feathers of the mothers. In the woodland by the river the bluebells were massing. The clay for the well dressing was cut from the wet end of the Hunters’ land, and carried up to the village hall. The men puddled it in a tin bath, stomping up and down while Irene kept adding water until she declared the consistency just right. When it was done Gordon Jackson went back to the Hunter place and asked Jess if she wanted to go for a drive. This had been mentioned. There’d been talk of wind turbines on the high ground overlooking Reservoir no. 9, and she wanted to get the lie of the land. She said she had some concerns. He thought there might be something else. Stuart Hunter was away. She’d been baking and she asked him to hang on while she got cleaned up. When she was ready she got into the Land Rover with him and they drove out past the visitor centre along the track leading up to the ridge. Gordon had a key for the gates. The track was deeply rutted and she bounced in her seat a few times and once there was a quick, embarrassed laugh and she reached out to grab at his arm. Eye contact, careful silence. There was a pattern but it was never routine. This had been developing for a time. At the top of the hill they stood against the Land Rover and he let her think the first kiss was her idea. He’d scrubbed his nails. She talked a lot and she had no shame about what they were doing. She wanted to be looked at and he took his time. Afterwards he wondered whether for once there might be something in it and he could see by the way she buttoned her blouse that there wouldn’t. He was just catching his breath and she already wanted to leave. She offered him a smile that made him want to sit down. He wondered how much concrete they’d need for the wind-turbine foundations, and whether they would build a new road to bring it in.
Sophie Hunter and Lynsey Smith went to a party in town and made a mess of the arrangements for getting home. They had no money for a taxi so they decided to walk. It should only have been four miles but they took a wrong turn in the woods in the dark. It was funny for a time but then they were scared at the trouble they’d be in. You know what my dad’s like about being late, Sophie said. He’ll have already called the police. It’s not just your dad, Lynsey said, it’s all of them. Lynsey was carrying her shoes and the mud was coming thick between her toes. They’d seen some car headlights and were heading down towards the road. I wouldn’t mind but it was a shit party anyway, Sophie said. She tried to laugh but she heard Lynsey crying. She turned back and reached for her hand. She could barely see her face in the dark. It won’t be far now, come on, you. Sophie, fucking hell, Sophie. They’ll be so pleased to see us they’ll forget to tell us off. Come on. I just wish. Lynsey, no. I just wish we knew what had happened to her. Lynsey; Jesus, again? Leave it out. They came out on the road by the cement works, and walked up the hill towards the village without speaking. The fourth car that came past was Mike Jackson and he gave them a lift. They were both kept home for a fortnight, and soon afterwards were given their own mobile phones, paid for by Sophie’s parents and meant for emergency use only. Olivia immediately wanted one as well, but was told she was too young. Jess Hunter made Sophie help Irene with the cleaning work in the barn conversions for that fortnight, and Irene worked her hard. Irene took the work seriously. She was quick but she didn’t take shortcuts. People employed her because they knew they wouldn’t have to check. It was the same at home. One thing Ted had always said was she kept the place decent. If you knew Ted you knew that was high talk. He’d never been much help himself, bringing all that dust in on his clothes and his boots. And the bath, when he was done, at the end of a week in the quarry. Like someone had used it to mix cement. This had been how it was. He worked out of the house, she worked in the house. It was only fair. And that included Andrew. If the boy was up in the night it was only fair that she go to him. Ted was older than her by nearly a decade, and too old for that type of carry-on. She’d been close to forty herself when Andrew was born, and sometimes she didn’t know where the energy came from. If the boy was having one of his fits then Ted was entitled to stay in his chair, the days he’d h
ad. This wasn’t something they’d negotiated. He liked the house to be quiet, and clean. It wasn’t too much to ask. But now that he wasn’t around she had more time to take on other cleaning work around the village. Cleaning was what she knew. She finished up and walked home the long way, cutting through the higher fields behind the Jackson place and the square. She had a little time before Andrew was back. The hard-baked footpath parted a way through the ripening grass. She felt the sun on her arms. She looked up to the moors. Years since the route of the Greystone Way had been moved and there were still deep ruts in the peat across the top of the moor, some of the walkers insisting on the original path, the eroded line widening steadily as people sidestepped the deepest mud. What was there to be done. The butterflies were out. The fieldfares were away, raising their young in the colder north.
In July Will and Claire were married. The church was full of people who’d known them since childhood. Jackson was brought down in his wheelchair, dressed in a new suit he’d had bought for him on account of his changing size. There was food at the Gladstone, and dancing in the village hall. Gordon Jackson was seen dancing with Susanna Wright, but nothing seemed to come of it. Susanna and her children had become known about the place. She was volunteering at the playgroup in the village hall, and had kept going with the yoga class. She’d taken on an allotment, and put her name down for the pantomime. She was quick to talk to people, and even Irene had said it was likely she’d settle in. The boy Rohan had made a decent stab at his GCSEs despite the disruption, and had sparked up a romance with Lynsey Smith. They were seen walking together, down by the river or through the beech wood, but more often they were just in the bus shelter by the cricket ground, kissing until their faces were raw. There were jokes made in the Gladstone, and even Susanna wondered when they would find somewhere private. She’d long since put a condom in his wallet to be on the safe side, and happened to know it was still there. Ashleigh had made friends at school but there was only Olivia Hunter who was her age in the village. She spent a lot of time on the computer. At the allotments Martin sat on the bench at the top end of their plot. Ruth’s plot now, although she’d raised no objection to him spending a little time there. She was making a better job of the place on her own than the two of them had done together. He didn’t mind admitting that. It meant something. It said something about the two of them. Or perhaps she was getting help. From someone he didn’t know about. It could be that. It could have been that all along. They could be looking at him now – Mr Wilson stooping over his asparagus beds, Clive forking out his compost – and pitying him for what he didn’t know. This wasn’t a line of thinking that helped, of course. He’d been advised. There were steps he could take, to steer around this line of thinking. He straightened his back and lifted his head and made himself a larger vessel for the difficult feelings. He looked outside himself and took other sensory information on board. He listed the plants he could see. Gooseberries and strawberries and currants; sweetcorn and courgettes and beans; nasturtiums and marigolds, sweet william, sweet peas; spinach, lettuce, kale. Nettles, cow parsley, thistles, bindweed. Plenty of bloody bindweed. Whoever the bugger was he wasn’t much of a gardener after all, leaving all that weeding to be done. He opened the tap on the bottom of the water butt and set off down the hill. He had another go at being mindful but mostly he minded a drink. Tents were seen up at the Stone Sisters, and there was talk of an environmental group setting up a protest camp against the new quarry. Les Thompson walked his fields in the evening while the sun was still warm on the grass. The heads were up and the cut would come tomorrow. In the beech wood the fox cubs were taken away from their dens and taught to find food for themselves. A white hooded top was found in a clough on the top of the moor, oiled a deep peat-brown and fraying at the seams. The make and design were confirmed as a match by the missing girl’s mother. The forensic tests took weeks and were inconclusive. Extensive searches were conducted where the top had been found but nothing further was unearthed.
Sophie Hunter and James Broad were known to be courting. This was the word Stuart Hunter used, without irony. Everyone had long assumed they would get together, but it was only a few weeks before they realised that something was wrong. They were in the cinema room at Sophie’s house one afternoon while her parents were away, and she told him not to take this the wrong way but sometimes it felt like kissing her brother. James told her she didn’t have a brother and she said that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t annoyed. He was almost relieved. He said that when he kissed her it didn’t feel like kissing his sister but more like kissing her mum. She asked when he’d kissed her mother and he said often. She’s a very liberated woman, he said, and she told him he was disgusting. It takes one to know one, he said. They were still holding each other, and although they knew where the conversation was going they were in no hurry to let go. He kissed her one more time, very softly, and shook his head. We used to run around naked together at playgroup, he said. It doesn’t feel right seeing you naked now. People will be disappointed, she told him. Captain of the rugby team and the head prefect? We’re supposed to be the dream team. This is it then? he asked. I guess it is, she said. That’s okay, isn’t it? He nodded. Mind you, she said, my parents aren’t due back for hours. She watched him as she unbuttoned her top. Well, this is confusing, he said. He shifted on the sofa. But if you’re going to be like that about it. She reached for the button of his jeans and they kissed again, quickly, and pulled off just enough clothes to have sex. He came quickly with a shout and a sigh and afterwards she stayed astride him for a moment, stroking the side of his face and telling him they would always be friends. And once they’d wriggled back into their clothes she told him, as though it was nothing, as though she’d only just thought of it, that actually Lynsey really liked him and he should think about that at some point. He shook his head and told her she was a disgrace. She asked him what the problem was. She wasn’t even at playgroup with us, she said. It would be different. He buttoned his jeans and reached for the remote control. You can choose, he said. The cricket team went over to Cardwell for the annual match and found that Cardwell had only managed to get eight players together. There was some discussion over whether the game should go ahead, and when it did the result was a hard-fought draw. Martin disappeared for a week and when he came back he was limping and there were cigarette burns on the backs of his hands. Woods had a longer memory than expected, was all he would say when Tony asked.
Mr Wilson lived next door to Cathy Harris, in one of a row of old mill workers’ cottages at the end of the lane by the cricket field. He’d moved to the area as a young man to work on the new reservoirs in the hills above the village. He and Jean had met in the drawing office, married within the year, and moved into the cottage together. When Cathy knocked on his door and asked if Nelson needed a walk, he invited her in for a cup of tea, as always. Nelson was running circles in the front room, and she reached down to knuckle him around the ears. He lifted his head and stilled for a moment, and Mr Wilson came through with the teas. He moved slowly now from age, and from his hip in particular, but Cathy remembered him as someone who’d always had an air of slow precision about him. She couldn’t picture him ever having run for a bus. She didn’t think he’d played in the village cricket team, although he’d been known to serve as umpire. He’d been an engineer with the water company until his retirement about five years ago, working on the reservoirs and the treatment plant for most of his career. He was proud of the project’s technical achievements, and knowledgeable on their working detail. His opinions on bottled water were well known. He was a tall man, with long limbs which he always seemed to be arranging carefully as he spoke. She’d never seen him without a collar and tie, although lately he’d been favouring cardigans over the jackets he’d worn before. I’ve made some more of those date slices, he told her, sitting down and smoothing the creases of his trousers as he crossed his legs. In the garden a pair of blackbirds were feeding together on the hawthorn, their young long gone. There was weather and the days began to shorten. At the church it was Maisie Jackson’s turn to put together the Harvest Festival display, and her decision to include a stack of unwashed fleeces alongside the more usual flowers and marrows and corn attracted remarks but nothing was said directly. There were blackthorn hedges on the track to Thompson’s farm that were mostly left uncut. By late September they were heavy with sloes, the black fruits in the sharp air dusted blue. It was a popular spot, and most of them were picked early and frozen to sweeten off, rattling like ball-bearings as they were poured into demijohns and smothered in sugar and gin. Frank Parker submitted his report on verge maintenance to the parish council. It had taken him more than a year to prepare. He was thanked for his work, and his conclusion – that more regular attention needed to be paid to verge maintenance
throughout the village – was duly noted. James Broad’s parents finally separated, and his father moved out to a place in town. The swallows left for the year. There was some confusion at the first Workers’ Educational Association meeting of the term when the book-keeping tutor turned up with a bag of protective clothing and a demonstration hive.
There were concerns about how Su Cooper was coping with the twins. She was seen arriving at the playgroup in the village hall one morning just as the toys were being packed away. She’d had to unbolt both doors to fit the double buggy through, wrestling it backwards up the step, and as she pulled it into the corner and turned to face the room it took her a few moments to understand that she was too late. Lee ran straight to the toy cupboard and started pulling out the cars, and she had to hurry after him and explain. Most of the other parents had already left. Susanna Wright went over and told Su it would be fine for the boys to play with a couple of cars while everything else was being packed away, and although Su tried to stop him Lee took this as a cue and dragged two cars out for him and Sam. Let me get you a coffee, Susanna said, resting her hand on Su’s shoulder. Su hesitated, and moved away very slightly. Tea, she said. Susanna nodded, and Su followed her towards the kitchen, standing by the hatch and keeping an eye on the boys. They were driving the cars towards each other at great speed, crashing head-on and screaming. Susanna told Su she’d put some toast on. I’m guessing breakfast was a long time ago now, she said, smiling, and when Su didn’t reply she went on to tell a long story about when Rohan had been a toddler and she’d left the house four times in one morning, only to be thwarted by a succession of dirty nappies, spilt food, and a broken buggy wheel. And when I finally got to the bus stop someone told me my dress was inside out and I burst into tears, she said, laughing, buttering the toast and passing it across the counter. Su smiled, thinly. It must have been hard for you, she said; by yourself. Oh, darling, no, I wasn’t by myself then, Susanna said. Things were a lot easier once I was. The boys had started crashing their cars into the wall. It’s always hard, Susanna said, softly. And it must be especially hard with twins. People understand that, you know. No one’s judging you. Everyone knows what a great job you’re doing, okay? She reached across the counter and put a hand on Su’s arm, and again Su shifted slightly away. Her eyes were dry and her mouth was tight and there was a stiffness in the way she was standing. Please, she said.
On Bonfire Night Irene and Winnie put together a group from the Women’s Institute and opened up the cricket pavilion to serve food. There were baked potatoes and chilli and some of the children poked marshmallows on very long sticks into the blaze. It was a dry night, and at one point the fire burned almost as high as the horse chestnut tree. Away from the crowd, Lynsey and Sophie were sharing a bottle of wine and being sarcastic about the fireworks. Sophie asked what had actually gone wrong with the whole Rohan thing, and Lynsey said it was hard to explain. She wasn’t sure who had ended it, she said. There were arguments and then they just didn’t see each other. But you liked him, Sophie said. Lynsey said yes, she liked him a lot, it was just that he got a bit. She trailed off. In the firelight Lynsey looked at her expectantly. You know, she said. Attentive. He was always doing things for me. Like, always. It was nice at first. It made a change from the way things are at home. But it was like he thought I needed protecting from everything. He was always asking what I was doing. He always looked so fucking concerned, you know? She made a frowning face of concern at Sophie, and Sophie laughed. You can go off a wrinkly forehead, Lynsey said. Sophie asked if she’d basically dumped him for having a wrinkly forehead, and she said she hadn’t dumped him. She’d tried talking to him but he just hadn’t got it. They had these arguments where he wouldn’t argue back. But anyway it was done now. It was over. Sophie asked if he was all right about it and Lynsey said she thought so, she wasn’t sure. Sophie asked whether he might be in need of consoling and Lynsey looked shocked. Don’t do that, she said, come on. He’s cute though, Sophie said. She finished the wine. He’s got a lovely forehead. The two of them were heard shrieking as they walked away towards the road. The bonfire was starting to die down and the crowd was thinning out. The clouds were high and the night was cold and the embers were still smoking in the morning. On the eleventh a wreath of poppies was carried up to the airmen’s memorial, and words said. There were few in the village now who could remember the heavy bomber thudding into the moor, the roar of it carrying across the valley and the awful explosions that followed and the smell of the peat burning for days. The ribs of the fuselage shone silver in the heather, picked as clean as sheep bones by the wind and rain.
Jane Hughes had started calling in to see the Jacksons regularly, talking mostly with Maisie about the farming and her family and then putting her head round the door to say hello to Jackson. She’d never so much as tried to bring a bible into the house, Maisie told Irene. I think she just likes passing the time of day. Jackson’s even started asking after her, though he doesn’t say much when she’s here. But she needn’t think we’re going to start watching Songs of Praise. She didn’t tell Irene that last time Jane had been there Maisie thought she’d seen her place hands on Jackson’s forehead and say some kind of prayer, and that Jackson’s eyes had closed in what looked like appreciation, and that she’d wondered about all the things she didn’t know were going on inside of that man’s head. At the allotments there was little left to harvest, save the first tender buds of Brussels sprouts. The badger sett in the beech wood was quiet. In the deep sleeping chambers the badgers were keeping still, waiting for the winter to pass. There was low cloud and rain, the sodden fields churned up with the force of it and the sky staying dark for days. The river pushed under the packhorse bridge and carried its rising force to the weir. The reservoirs were high and the water poured over the rim of the spillways, cascading down the steps to the culverts which fed through the base of the dam. The missing girl’s father hadn’t been seen all year. There were reports in the newspapers that he’d been reunited with the girl’s mother. It couldn’t be said that his brooding presence was missed. Late in the month there was snow and the Jacksons went out on the hills looking for ewes. They carried sacks of feed on the back of the quad bikes and brought the flocks down to the lower fields. There were no losses yet but if this weather kept up it was likely. There was carol singing at the school on the last day of term, the hall hung with decorations and the words on a screen and the parents perching on tiny chairs to join in as the sky darkened outside and the weather closed in again. While shepherds watched their flocks by night, they sang, glancing up at the moors; all seated on the ground.
The missing girl’s name was Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. She would be seventeen by now, and the police published a computer-generated image of how she might look. There was something about this approximate-Becky that seemed too smooth. As though the Becky in the picture had been kept in a sterile room and was only now coming out, blinking, unsteady on her feet and with no more sense of the world than the thirteen-year-old child who had gone in. The police said they hoped the increased publicity surrounding the image’s release would encourage people to rethink their movements at the time of the girl’s disappearance. There were dreams about her appearing on television again, gazing at the cameras as she was hurried from a car to a house in a London street, unable to talk about where she’d been. There were dreams about her crawling through the caves, her clothes smeared with mud and tar in the dark. There were dreams about her held captive, in basements and isolated barns, always with something across her mouth or her eyes. There never seemed any way to stop it. She had been looked for, everywhere, and she hadn’t been found. She’d been looked for in every shed and greenhouse on the allotment, doors kicked in if the owners were away, old rolls of carpet and plastic matting lifted, torches shone in behind armchairs and stacks of peat and coils of hose. It wasn’t known what more could have been done. The allotments were cold and bare, exposed on the high ground to the wind which came scouring up the
valley. In his greenhouse Clive was laying out seed potatoes, half-listening to Susanna Wright, who was leaning in the doorway with a seed catalogue. She was telling him about the heritage varieties she was planning to order. It sounded quite the quantity. Her voice kept going up as though these were questions, but he didn’t think she was asking advice. He wasn’t going to offer if it wasn’t called for. He did know that no one had successfully grown globe artichokes on this site yet. Through the iced greenhouse glass he could see the tops of the beech trees bending in the wind. There was Jones leaning over his spade, digging over his entire plot once again. The man had a love of bare soil that was hard to fathom. Jones was keeping his eye on the old Tucker place. He cut the ivy back from the windows and went up a ladder to clear the gutter. It would do no one any favours if the place went to ruin. His sister wanted to know where the Tuckers had gone and who would move in next. He said he didn’t always have the answers. He asked her not to ask so many bloody questions, and when the tears came he said he was sorry. It went on like this. This was how it went on.
5.
At midnight when the year turned there were fireworks on the television in the pub and dancing in the street outside. The evening was mild and dry. The village hall had emptied out and when the bells were rung there was cheering for the first time in years. Richard Clark came home on New Year’s Day, and when his mother opened the door he could see all her bedroom furniture crammed into the front room. Jackson’s boys came and moved it for me, she said, as though that were an explanation. It was a shock, he told Cathy later, as they walked by the river with Mr Wilson’s dog. He hadn’t known how reduced his mother’s mobility had become. His sisters had told him nothing. He wondered if they even knew how long it was taking her to get up out of her chair, to walk through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. He wondered how she was managing to get to the shops. There were people who helped, presumably. Neighbours. Irene. Cathy didn’t like to admit that she’d had no idea. She rested her hand on the wall as she squeezed through the gapstone stile, and stooped to let Nelson off the lead. She watched Richard squeeze through the gap. He thought there was something in the way she looked at him but it was probably nothing. That was all a long time ago. They’d both moved on. He understood that. They were different people now. He remembered how restless he’d been then, when they were seventeen and imagined they were in love. He’d been impatient for everything, and all they’d seemed to talk about was getting away from the village; going to university, travelling the world. He’d never disliked the place, or the people. It had just seemed natural to want to leave, and natural to want to talk about it even while they were undressing each other and learning what was possible with the scratch and yield of the heather beneath them. He wondered now whether Cathy really had talked about it in the same way, or whether she’d just let him rattle on. Patrick had never mentioned leaving. Richard remembered that much. He’d never talked about the future at all. There was no need. He just kept working in his father’s timber yard after school, while his shoulders got broader, his hands rougher, his wallet fatter. Everyone knew he would inherit the yard once his father retired. It was the sort of certainty, Richard had realised later, that some people found attractive. He looked at Cathy now, walking on ahead, her stride long and effortless between the trees. He wondered if she was thinking about any of this. It seemed unlikely. She looked back at him, slowing for a moment as she told him to keep up.
Martin told Tony he wouldn’t send Ruth a Valentine’s card. He knew it was over between them, he said, although he didn’t fully understand what had actually gone wrong. She’d said nothing about the card the previous year. He knew that trying to fix things between them only gave her a chance to feel sorry for him. He definitely wouldn’t send her a card. On the fourteenth he bought a card and posted it to her house, and on the back of the envelope he said he hoped she didn’t mind it being late. The quarry was busy again for a time. They were working a new face, and blasting frequently. The trees along the road were all heavily dusted, and no one had hung washing outside for weeks. There was a want of rain to clear the air. If Andrew was home when the siren went Irene had to be sure to be with him. There was an anxiety it brought out in him that seemed more in keeping with the way the birds flew away or the sheep lunged over to the far side of the field. As a boy he’d just covered his ears and screamed. Now it was more of the headshaking and yelping to himself, but if she stood near him that seemed to be enough. She wondered if his head held the sound in the same place as it held his father. She wasn’t sure what he remembered of his father. But it was never simple. What he knew and didn’t know. People explained things to her, about what they said was his capacity, and often they turned out to be wrong. When the siren went at the quarry she wanted to hold him but he wouldn’t be held. She could only stand nearby. He’d been strong enough to throw her off for years. Some days the siren sounded five or six times. From the eaves of the church the first bats were seen leaving at dusk, hungry from a long winter’s sleep and listening for food.